A friend has a 2.4L SRT motor.
He wants to bolt it to an earlier hydraulic automatic, not the later electronic autos. Simpler install and he can get torque converters and manual valve bodies for the early stuff.
So, can he find and use a 2.2L transverse auto?

Reason for asking - He's got a little sand rail with a cheap copy of the Suzuki 3 cylinder in it. It won't pull up sand hills with 2 people, and it's got 4 seats...

One of the bolt holes doesn't match up if memory serves. I think you can fab an L shaped bracket or just leave the one out.

Up to him if he wants to run an auto. I know there are some upgrades and mods out there for the old 413 auto trans. I would swap in a stick shift, I think it would be a lot more fun than an auto. Might have to get a bit creative with the shift cables to not end up with a backwards shift pattern!

Thanks!
He's on crutches = no clutch.
Plus, the whole thing is designed for maybe 90 HP. adding shock with a stick would just cause more issues, plus all the extra fab work.

The 1995-2000 Neon used the same 3spd hydraulic automatic transmission as the older 2.2 but it will have the correct bellhousing so theres no need to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks guys, I passed along the info and a few links I found about neon swaps too.

So this chassis is made for 90HP. So you got 260 Hp in the SRT4 motor that will rip the thing apart. Why does he not buy a 2 litre out of a neon that has the auto on it already and put it in the rail. It is easier and cheaper to use a 96-99 wiring harness for this swap. Also there is quite a lot of aftermarket pieces to bolt on the 2.0 cheap. If you are running the SRT 4 turbo were are you going to put the inner cooler and all the goodies that go with the Srt4 swap.Do you have the PCM and wiring harness for the Srt4 and if you run the stock srt4 pcm do you have the a skim key-module and the dash cluster. These are a few thing that you will likely need unless you use a mega squirt stand alone PCM.

I agree with you, the motor is overkill.
He's got it in the garage, so that's part of it.
I'm sure he's also thinking - If I'm going to all the effort of a swap, I want it to be over the top.
I agree that a complete earlier neon drivetrain would be easier. I'll try to sway him that way.
I think that a 500CC-900CC bike motor would be even better, but he's a Mopar car guy not a bike guy.
This is the type he's got... not sure it's this exact one, but similar...
Now you can see just how overkill an SRT would be...

What kind of a suzuki 3 cylinder is that? I was thinking the geo metro/pontiac firefly/chevy sprint came with 3cyl suzuki motors, with them having a turbocharged version available...

Yes, but if the bellhousing pattern was the same then that would eliminate so much of the fab work if he could reuse his trans. Would need the engine, turbo and efi system out of a donor car. Not like donor sprints are worth much. It's an idea anyway....

It had plenty of power but the tall tires killed the gearing. I fought with Guy about that but he refused to listen. It would top out second gear at 93 mph, shift to third, and start dropping speed.

90+ mph in a home built hand controlled buggy on a gravel road on top of a flood control levee?

Yeah, I'm nuts sometimes.


BTW... she begged me to hit that mud hole.